Lowcountry Boneyard (4 page)

Three

“Hey, sweetie.” Moon Unit Glendawn called out a welcome as I came through the door of The Cracked Pot, the island’s diner. Moon Unit owned the place, had bought it a few years after we graduated from college—her from Carolina, me from Clemson. She’d remodeled it, putting a tropical café spin on the traditional diner. She was there every day to greet customers and gather, embellish, and disseminate town gossip. The Cracked Pot was a touchstone for everyone who’d ever lived in Stella Maris.

I spotted Ansley in the back booth. Silky, pale blonde hair brushed her shoulders. Everything about her shouted “cheerleader.” She’d been one at Stella Maris High School.

“Hey, Moon. I’m going to join Ansley Johnson. Could you bring me a glass of tea?”

“Sure thing. Unsweet with Splenda?”

“Please.” Drinking sweet tea added a thousand calories to my daily intake.

I slid into the booth across from Ansley. “Thanks for meeting me. How are your mamma and daddy?”

Worry clouded her typically sparkling blue eyes. Her bubbly nature had been supplanted. “They’re fine, thanks. And I’m happy to talk to you. I’m just so, so thankful Mr. Heyward hired you. I wanted to call you myself. But he is such a freak about family privacy. I thought if I wanted him to work with you I should do things his way.”

“Good call.” I reached in my bag for the Purell.

Moon Unit set my iced tea in front of me. “You sure you don’t want something to eat?”

“I had lunch in Charleston. Ansley?”

“This is fine.” She had a glass of ice water with lemon in front of her.

Moon Unit placed a hand on her chest and leaned back. “So
tell
me.”

I blinked. “What?”

She blew out a breath strong enough to fluff her bangs. “About Merry’s new
boyfriend
.”

I was at a loss. Merry had a new boyfriend? When had I last spoken with my sister? It had been a few days, not long enough for a major development on the romantic front.

“Moon, your sources are better than mine. I don’t have a clue.”

She pressed both hands to her chest. “Oh, sweetie. I am so sorrrryy. I bet I ruined a surprise. Oh. I am just…
so
sorry.” She backed away with a sorrowful look.

Ansley looked at me wide-eyed.

“I guess I better call my sister.” I waved it away with one hand and pulled a notepad and pen out of my purse with the other. “May I record our conversation?”

“Sure.”

I opened a voice memo and dictated the particulars. “Tell me about Kent.”

“She’s my best friend. I love her like a sister.” Her blue eyes glistened. “We were college roommates sophomore year. We shared an apartment off-campus junior and senior year.”

“You’ve both been out of school about eighteen months, right?” Ansley still had the look of a coed about her, though she was dressed for the office in her silky blue shell and gray skirt.

“That’s right.”

“You’ve kept in touch?”

“We talk every day. We see each other at least once a week. We know
everything
about each other.”

I was thinking how everyone had secrets. “Have you met her boyfriend?”

“Matt? Of course. I hang out with them all the time.” She blushed, smiled. Her teeth were impossibly white against the suntan she’d maintained into fall. “Well, not
all
the time. He is the sweetest thing. If Mr. Heyward thinks Matt had anything to do with Kent’s disappearance…well, that’s just crazy. Matthew treats Kent like a queen. They were going to move in together. Did Mr. Heyward tell you that?”

“He mentioned it.” Clearly, Ansley did not share Colton Heyward’s views on the merits of dating chefs. “Okay, so when was the last time you saw Kent?”

“The Wednesday before she disappeared. We had drinks and dinner at Poe’s.”

Poe’s Tavern on Sullivan’s Island was named for Edgar Allen Poe, who’d been stationed at Fort Moultrie while in the army. I had a sudden craving for one of their cheeseburgers. “Any particular reason?”

Ansley shook her head.

“We were just hanging out.”

“Was anything bothering Kent?”

“Yes. Her parents were making her crazy.”

“Tell me about that.”

“Her dad is such a snob. Her mamma’s not really like that, but she goes along with everything her dad says. He hated that Kent was dating—his words—a cook. Matt is a
trained chef
.” Ansley punctuated her words by pointing at the table. “He has a degree in culinary arts from the Art Institute. The Heywards act like he’s a dishwasher at a Waffle House.”

From the cradle, Southern women in certain circles were molded to adorn, to charm, their position in society preordained. True love with lesser mortals wasn’t part of the plan.

“How long had Kent been dating Matt?”

“Her parents don’t know this, but they started seeing each other three years ago. Kent and I met him at The Belmont, on Upper King Street? We were hanging out with friends. He was hanging out with friends. We started talking. It was casual—at first. I actually went out with him a time or two before he started dating Kent.”

“They were getting serious?”

“Very. Matt adores her. It’s mutual. But her parents have to make everything so hard. They keep trying to get her to date—their words—someone more appropriate. They’re just always on her about it.
They’re
the biggest reason she wants to move out and live with Matt.”

“Are Kent and Matt talking marriage?”

Ansley looked away. She brushed her hair back from her shoulder. “I don’t think so. Matt’s focused on his future. He wants to own his own restaurant in Charleston.”

Something about the marriage question had flustered Ansley. “Does that bother Kent? That he’s so focused on his career?”

“Not that she ever said. She’s so proud of him.”

“I’ll need to talk to Matt. Can you give me his phone number?”

“Sure.” Ansley tapped her phone a few times and mine vibrated slightly. “I shared all of his contact info.”

“Thanks. Was Kent active on social media? Facebook, Twitter?”

“She has a Facebook profile, but she was never one to post much. She talked about deleting the account, said she wanted to interact with people in person.”

Was that a trend? Backing away from social media? Seems like I’d heard something about that. I’d’ve thought twenty-somethings spent a lot of time on Facebook.

“Share Kent’s contact info with me, would you? That way I’ll have her email, Facebook, cell number, and everything else all in one place.”

Ansley tapped her phone a few more times. “Done.”

“Are you on Facebook?”

“Yes. But I don’t use it much either.”

“Mind if I use your profile to check out Kent’s friends? Unless you happen to know her password.”

“Hers is probably either Van Gogh, Monet, or Renoir, with her birthday. If you can’t get in, you can use my account.” She took the pen I offered her and wrote her login info on my pad.

“Thanks. Back to that Wednesday night at Poe’s, did Kent vent about her parents more than usual? Say anything that made you believe she would leave town to get away from them?”

“No.” The word was solid. “There is no way she would leave Matt. Even if her parents pushed her over the edge and she did something that desperate, she would
not
worry everyone to death. Kent is way too thoughtful to treat folks who love her like that, no matter what they did. She would tell us—she’d tell
me
—that she was leaving.”

“And you’ve spoken to all her other friends just to be sure?”

“Everyone I can think of. At least twice. No one has seen or heard from her.”

“And you think you could tell if they weren’t being truthful.”

“Absolutely.”

“Could you email me a list of names and phone numbers of all her friends from college? And anyone she was still close with from high school that you know of—anyone you’ve heard her mention. I need to double check every possibility.”

“Sure.” Her tone let me know she thought this was a waste of time. “I gave all that to the police. They’ve checked and rechecked, too.”

“Did Kent mention anything aside from her parents that was troubling her?”

“Not a thing.”

“Did she like her job?”

Ansley shrugged. “Well enough. She didn’t have her dream job, if that’s what you mean. She liked the people she worked with. She’s very artistic.”

I thought about the paintings in her room. “She’s quite talented.”

Ansley’s eyes threw flames. Her mouth drew up into something very near a sneer, which was so far out of character for her I drew back. “Kent could have been a great painter—famous, even. Except her parents didn’t think it was a suitable career for her. They imagined her hanging out with drugged-up hippie types. Which is some crazy stereotype they picked up in a sixties movie or something anyway. Kent is not like that.”

“She never did drugs?”

“Well, okay, she may have smoked a little pot in school. Once or twice, if everyone else was, and someone offered it to her. It was more not to offend anyone than anything else.”

She smoked pot to be polite? That was taking gracious to a whole nother level. “Was she having trouble with anyone—an ex-boyfriend, or a wannabe boyfriend maybe?”

Ansley shook her head. “No.”

“No enemies?”

“None. Not for as long as I have known her.”

“You said y’all talk every day. Did you speak to her the day she disappeared?”

“Yes. She called me during her lunch break—my lunch break, too. I’m working at Robert Pearson’s law office as a paralegal. I’m thinking about law school.” She shook her head, aggravated. “You don’t need to hear about me. Anyway, it was just a ‘hey whatcha doin?’ kind of call.”

“Did she mention her plans for the evening?”

“Yes—I told the police this. She was going out with a few artists she knew, locals. Painting was Kent’s thing. I don’t know that crowd. She was super excited because one of them has his own gallery, and he’d been real encouraging to her.
His
name I do know—Evan Ingle. He has a gallery here in town.”

That name rang a bell. “In Stella Maris, you mean?” Hadn’t Colton Heyward said that Ansley didn’t know who Kent was meeting?

“Yes. He opened a gallery on Palmetto Boulevard a few years ago. He lives and paints upstairs and showcases and sells his work in the street-level storefront. You’ve never been in there?”

“Actually, I have. I’ve browsed it a few times. I’d be happy to have a few of his pieces hanging on my walls, and I don’t usually like abstract paintings.”

Ansley tilted her head at me. “That’s not all he does. I think that’s just the collection he’s showing now. Kent loved his work. She raved in painter-speak about him. I didn’t understand much of it, but apparently he’s a genius with light.”

“Did the police question him?”

“Yes, and I did, too. I mean, I went to talk to him. He said they were supposed to meet at Bin 152 on King Street at eight. Only Kent never showed up. He figured something had come up and she’d changed her plans.”

Ansley must’ve been desperate if she’d gone to question this artist herself. Very Nancy Drew of her. “Did he give the police the names of the other folks in the group?”

“He said he did, when I went to talk to him. He seemed like a really nice guy to me. You could tell he cared about Kent. I didn’t ask him for the other names. Somehow that seemed rude. Like I was implying he needed an alibi or something.”

I resisted the urge to share with her the Ted Bundy lecture my mother had drilled into me regarding how serial killers often seemed like nice guys. Apparently Nell Johnson hadn’t been as vigilant as my mamma in her serial-killer training. “So, what do you think happened to Kent?”

“If I had to bet, I’d say someone in her screwed-up family decided they’d get more of the family fortune if she disappeared.”

I sat all the way back in my seat. “Her parents are very protective. She’s an only child.”

“I don’t mean Heyward money, though I’m sure there’s plenty of that. Her grandparents on her mother’s side have the real money. The Bounetheaus. Kent is close to her grandparents. But she has an aunt, two creepy uncles, and a bunch of cousins I wouldn’t turn my back on for a minute. There’s a pile of money to be divvied up one day. The fewer the piles, the bigger the piles get.”

I pondered that for a moment. I purely did not want this to be about Bounetheau family drama. “Any family on her father’s side?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Do you honestly believe someone in her family would kill her for a bigger inheritance?”

Ansley studied the table for a long moment, her smooth blonde hair framing her worried expression. “This is between us, right?”

“Unless you’re involved in a crime or have evidence of one.”

Ansley shook her head. “I have
not
committed a crime. And I don’t have evidence of anything. But Kent’s uncles…I wouldn’t put a thing past them.”

“What are their names?”

“Peyton and Peter Bounetheau. They’re twins. Neither of them has ever married, and they still live with their parents.”

“Okay, that’s not typical. On the other hand, it isn’t criminal. What makes them so creepy?”

Ansley shook her head slowly, like she was searching it and finding nothing. “Honestly, I can’t tell you. I just think something is off about them.”

I felt my face squinch up. I could hear Mamma now saying I was courting wrinkles. “There’s something off about a lot of folks. That doesn’t make them killers.”

“A lot of folks don’t have a missing niece and boatloads of family money.”

“Fair enough. Is that your only theory?”

Tears filled her eyes. “I wish I could think of something—anything—that would help. She just vanished somewhere between her house and the restaurant.”

“Bin 152, that’s just up from the corner of King and Queen. Less than half a mile from home for Kent. Would she normally drive that, or walk?” One of the many benefits of living in downtown Charleston was being able to walk to so many restaurants, art galleries, shops, and the like. It seemed odd she’d drive.

Ansley shrugged. “If she wasn’t going anywhere else, and the weather was nice, she’d walk. Except I know she took her car. At least that’s what her parents said.”

Kent hadn’t planned on going anywhere before she met her friends unless she’d planned on being late. Mr. Heyward had said she’d left at seven forty-five. She might’ve had plans for afterward. Maybe she would’ve met Matt after he got off work. I needed to establish a timeline for the evening. It would be helpful to know exactly where Kent had planned to be and when.

I jotted down, “What was the weather like on September twelfth?” and “Why did she take her car?” along with, “Where did she park?” I’d love to know what the case detectives had done by way of looking for her car.

As gently as possible, I asked, “Ansley, do you have any reason to believe her parents were abusive?”

“You mean did they hit her? Never. Her daddy has a temper. But he never laid a hand on Kent or her mother. Kent would have told me. Emotional abuse…I guess that’s a matter of opinion. I would say so. They would say they just want what’s best for her.”

“Do you think her daddy has a bad enough temper he could have hurt her in a fit of rage, maybe not meaning to?”

Ansley weighed that. “It’s possible, I guess.”

A companion to my list of questions was my list of possibilities for each case. I try to imagine all the scenarios, no matter how improbable. If he’d hurt his daughter, Colton Heyward wouldn’t be the first person to hire an investigator to make himself look innocent.